What I Learned on my Social Media Vacation: Conclusion of “Kevin Marshall Logs Off”

Last Wednesday I decided, after years of regular and sometimes hourly use, to give up the use of social media (sites like Twitter and Facebook). “Kevin Marshall Logs Off” is a series exploring what happened when I did so and just how deep my generation’s dependence on these sites runs, all leading up to the release of the highly anticipated film “The Social Network” on October 1st.

When we last left, it was Sunday evening and just like that episode of “The Simpsons” where Homer has to give up drinking for thirty days, I opted out of the temptation and proved that it was no longer a requirement for me to get drunk on Facebook. But, at the time, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I reached the point where I wasn’t just resisting the urge. The urge, or interest, had dissipated completely.

On Monday I got up, made myself a bowl of cereal, and went to Facebook. So much for staying power.

Naomi’s example was more of an extreme; she went as far as trying to disconnect from everything, including e-mail. I didn’t try that simply because I couldn’t afford it. Since I wasn’t on vacation, I needed some form of digital communication available to me in terms of work and other projects.

The long and the short of it is that we’re so dependent on this type of technology that we really need it to function not just personally but professionally as well.

As Monday came and went, I started reaching out. The project was finished, and people were curious and had some questions and feedback. One of the more enlightening phone calls was with my oldest sister, Davelyn. She described it as a “social media colonic,” a phrase which I like but don’t think is accurate. After all, there was some sort of benefit to even temporarily removing these sites, whereas a colonic doesn’t have any health benefit at all (colonics are a complete scam; if there truly was build-up in your colon then it eventually would close up completely and you’d die).

What were the benefits?

Well, for one, I’m not as reliant as I used to be on the sites to pass the time. While it’s only been a few days since I’ve been back one, I’m already noticing that I’m not habitually checking the sites. It’s certainly made me more productive in terms of my writing and all of the projects I’m working on.

It also helps that I’ve kept all of those pesky e-mail notifications turned off, which created a lot less clutter (hear that, Simpler Living?) in my e-mail inbox. In doing so I realized that it’s sort of silly to have those notifications turned on. What’s the point of being told I have a wall post or a message on Facebook if f I’m going to eventually log in later that day anyway?

The answer, of course, is that it adds just that little bit of excitement and anticipation to the experience. I didn’t need that now, though. What I needed was a little less noise. Mission accomplished, and I was still able to find out who was sending me what and which person liked which video from YouTube I favorited.

Most importantly, it taught me that I really need to reach out to people more.

Perhaps we all do. In the same conversation with my sister Davelyn, she told me about her and my brother-in-law’s friend Frank deleting his Facebook account. When she asked why he did it, he said because it’d ultimately made him feel left out. People who would previously make an effort to call or write to him were now simply writing “Happy birthday!” on his wall and not communicating with him for weeks at a time.

If there’s any real negative effect in social media, it’s that. Those of us who didn’t have Facebook while we were still in college were sold on the idea that we could use this tool to reconnect with those who we’d lost contact with long ago. Joyous images of happy reunions and catching up made our blood pump as we found our best friend from high school and the first girl we ever kissed. Then our friends all got Facebooks and our family members, one by one, until finally we’d reached a point where we were no longer reconnecting with people.

We were, in fact, connected with more people. The trade-off was that it was in a far less meaningful way. Brief comments and well wishes replaced real and earnest effort and conversation. It only got worse when we realized we didn’t need to reply to an important message or statement, we could simply “like” it.

The creators of these sites are not entirely to blame. They’re not part of some nefarious scheme to fulfill the type of dystopian future we were warned of in science fiction novels. They’re just looking to make money and build a site where people can post and connect and promote themselves. None of these things are inherently bad, but it’s our responsibility to make sure that we don’t allow connections to further the divide that we have with each other.

Now more than ever, we live in an age where attention and care can be given passively. With acquaintances, that’s fine. With loved ones, it can create misunderstandings and resentments, or worse, we can miss out on some truly important moments.

That’s the most important thing I’ve learned from this amateur study of mine: at some point we traded a small number of important life memories with people we care about for a large number of fleeting moments.

We don’t need to come together and simultaneously purge our presence on sites like Facebook or Twitter. We do, however, owe it to each other to make sure we maintain that balance of living life and simply “Liking” life.

Otherwise, we’re going to find ourselves friending family on Facebook before we meet them face to face.

5 Responses

While I can’t totally cut myself off from social media completely just because of the way my life functions (and it’s sort of part of my job), I have been trying to only look at it in doses recently. I’ve been better about writing because of it. I also had not thought to turn off email/text notifications – so thank you for that idea. I know I tend to get flooded with emails about notifications that I just end up seeing a second time once I log on to the service itself.

I commend you for going through the exercise of trying to eliminate the crutch of social media for meaningful relationships. I have to return to the original catalyst to this because there’s a disconnect in my mind.

I’m going to put myself in your shoes and say that a girl came up to me and said she thought what I said on twitter was funny. If I were my average self minus the social persona, this is someone with whom I’d never have communication with. Being that I’m the one who makes available my social persona, the fact that someone actually took time out of their day to approach me and compliment me is actually super flattering. I mean, for what other purpose would I keep up with the twitter or the blog or facebook or whatever?

It’s not like I do anything memorable for a living where she’d come up and say, “man, I really love what you do as a chemist.” I’ll never be recognized for that.

What I think the point is is that, like you say in this article, meaningful relationships get diluted into what you are calling the insignificant. For example, my birthday. Pre 2003 (pre-myspace), you know how many phone calls I got wishing me happy birthday? 2, one from parents, one from my brother. This past year, I had over 75 facebook “friends” wishing me happy birthday. Do I think they meant it? Probably not, but unless they’re celebrating with you, isn’t the sentiment of “happy birthday” a small-talk item?

And I agree, we shouldn’t be relying on facebook to communicate with family and that people get carried away with things like facebook.

But I’d like to maintain that we are responsible for what we put out. If you enjoy being a blogger for the Times Union, and you have a twitter account that overlaps with that from time to time, people are going to recognize you for it. Rather than think that this is how you are defined as a person, I would hope that you think about it as somebody taking the time out of their day to not only hear you out but to also approach you and let you know that what you do, no matter how insignificant socially, is appreciated.

This was a great experiment, Kevin. I’m wrong, because it appears you have different feelings about Facebook than I previously believed.

And thanks, because I feel slightly less alone in the way I use facebook…which is somewhat the way most do, but there’s no way I would want ALL of those people to have instant contact with me. I only have a few friends, but it’s mostly because it’s ingrained in my personality to not have the time for such things.

I do expect success to touch me again someday. I don’t want to miss the opportunity because I’m too busy checking Facebook for updates.